Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

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marcelo_malara
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by marcelo_malara »

Hi Robert:

Bolivia still claims her former land. I don´t know legally and diplomatically what is the state of the claim, but they feel they had been robbed. Bear in mind that the loss of those lands made Bolivia an inner country. Aside this, the Bolivian military has no capabilities at all to fight Chile.
The case of Peru is different. Peru has modern armament, including Mig-29s and Mirage 2000 fighters, and 300 T-55 tanks, not modern but a force to take into account. And somehow Chile has to face this, knowing that Peru didn´t hesitate in recent years to fight Ecuador for a border dispute.
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RF
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

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The Peru/Ecuador border dispute goes back a long way and has seen Ecuador reduced to half its former size. It would also make Ecuador a potential ally of Chile, giving Peru the possibility of a two front war. How far do you think it is likely that Chile would back up Ecuador is this dispute?

I believe that the Chile/Bolivia border was arbitrated in the late 1860's by the Johnson administration in the US (after the US Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln), which found largely in favour of Chile but left Bolivia with two remaining Pacific ports. The Bolivian military ignored and sat on these findings, and in 1879 the Chileans invaded and Bolivia was unable to defend its coastal region properly, and lost it in a matter of weeks.

I would suppose the atitudes of the Bolivians and their politicians would be that it is desirable (and it certainly would be commercially) to get their coastline back, it is on their wishlist but utterly unattainable. In other words an issue used by politicians to generate support for them, but take it no further.
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Nelson Ott
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by Nelson Ott »

Hi all,

My country (Brazil) has been keeping itself away from such South American borders and territories issues. Rivalry with Argentina and Chile are things of the past. Our armed forces were on a steady decline over the years, to a rather dangerous point of having its operational status compromised in some areas. But as soon as we discovered a big oil reserve offshore, foreign governments and defense industries have been offering last word technologies for us to defend the new oil reserve. First, France with their nuclear and conventional subs, and now Boeing that has just offered fully equipped, most updated Super Hornets to the FAB (Brazilian Air Force). I think we will have more such news in a near future.

Regards,

Nelson Ott
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RF
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by RF »

This neatly comes back to the point of what exactly the perceived threat is, who is the expected enemy?

Or is it the case that armaments manufacturers are exploiting a good sales pitch?
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

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At one point I remember Brazil was building a very impressive arms industry of their own. In particular I remember them haveing a very well designed tank for 3rd world countries. Perhaps there is some thought of reivigorating this industry? Certainly the price tags on US and even Russian gear is getting pretty high and may not be optimum for smaller and/or poorer countries.
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Nelson Ott
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by Nelson Ott »

lwd wrote:At one point I remember Brazil was building a very impressive arms industry of their own. In particular I remember them haveing a very well designed tank for 3rd world countries. Perhaps there is some thought of reivigorating this industry? Certainly the price tags on US and even Russian gear is getting pretty high and may not be optimum for smaller and/or poorer countries.
You are right. I used to work at Engesa in the eighties, the Brazilian company that produced the Osorio, an MBT that won a competition against the M1 Abrams and other first-line tanks in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, lack of firm orders killed the Osorio project (and Engesa too). The local defense industry vanished and there are no plans to ressurect it.

Regards to all

Nelson Ott
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RF
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by RF »

A considerable number of ''third world'' countries are now developing their own armaments industries. However there are two points to this on strategic grounds:

1) It is expensive and imposes what economists would call a ''comparative cost disadvantage.'' As such the resources used could be put to a more economically productive use.

2) The question of quality and reliability. Are the weapons of as good a quality as the armaments of say Britain, France, USA etc.?
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by lwd »

RF wrote:...2) The question of quality and reliability. Are the weapons of as good a quality as the armaments of say Britain, France, USA etc.?
From everything I heard Brazil was doing a very good job quality and reliability wise. Indeed from what I remember the reliability was expected to be as good or better than US equipment might be while operating in third world countries. Keeping things simpler and designing for the environment was one of the keys. For instance the tank mentioned above was kept at a weight that allowed it to cross a lot more bridges in some of the countries of interest. They also avoided the high wear out rates that continue to plague most Soviet equipment.
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Nelson Ott
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

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lwd wrote: From everything I heard Brazil was doing a very good job quality and reliability wise. Indeed from what I remember the reliability was expected to be as good or better than US equipment might be while operating in third world countries. Keeping things simpler and designing for the environment was one of the keys. For instance the tank mentioned above was kept at a weight that allowed it to cross a lot more bridges in some of the countries of interest. They also avoided the high wear out rates that continue to plague most Soviet equipment.
Correct. The Osorio MBT was designed for extremely rough environmental conditions. And being diesel-powered, It was even more trouble-free than the turbine-driven Abrams in the desert.

Also think on Embraer fighting planes, they have an extremely high reliability record on most difficult environments. Having such difficult conditions in our own country teaches our engineers how to design very tough equipments.
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RF
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

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lwd wrote: From everything I heard Brazil was doing a very good job quality and reliability wise. Indeed from what I remember the reliability was expected to be as good or better than US equipment might be while operating in third world countries.
Of course the quality of weapons imported into third world countries from the West (or the former Soviet bloc) will be less than their quality in their home countries, where they are not second hand ''cast offs.''

What I was thinking of in my post in asking about quality was not really the quality of these imported weapons, but the originals. The Isreali's are the one example of an arms industry which started from scratch and now exports weapons of a quality equal quality to any Western industry (I am thinking of small arms here - obviously for larger weapons there is still a technological dependence on the USA).
If Brazil is to develop an effective indigenous arms industry it will need to compete on an equal quality of weaponry to that of its host countries, on the basis of the weaponry those countries use for their own defence. Otherwise it is cheaper to import the cast off weaponry.
Technology development will be a problem, particulary for third world navies, because of cost and ''know how'' - particulary if they don't have an existing large technological and resource base to draw on.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Sadly it seems that populist socialist Ignacio Lula da Silva, Brazil´s President, is keen to put his country and Latin America in trouble with an armamentist race. Not even during the dictatorship periods of the 60ies or 70ies a Latin American country has developed such an agressive and excesive plan to buy new and sophisticated armament.

It´s likely that the idea is to face (or "help") Hugo Chávez armamentistic plan (this looney ignorant is buying new T-72 tanks, Su-27 fighters, and now middle range missiles which he celebrates as a five year old reckless child). But if both leftist goverments came with this irresponsible buys what can we expect Colombia, Paraguay or Peru would do? Already social democrat Chile has enough high tech gadgets to be a regional superpower. What can we expect Argentina will do?

We know that Russia needs money, time and strategic allies. But France, as always, is playing the irresponsible seller here. Instead of helping Brazil to protect the jungles of Amazon, the lungs of the planet, it´s going to help Brazilians to get four subs, one which will be nuclear. Why on earth Brazil needs a sub? A nuclear one? Maybe French military industry has suffered hence not a single western goverment has buy them their failed air superiority fighter (with which they wanted to compete against the Eurofighter and US made warbirds) and that their naval prestige has been the less one in Europe since Nelson showed everybody he controled the seas. But it is not moral to make a underdevolped country to waste in toys instead of feeding it´s people and buying medicines or protecting it´s natural resources for the well being of all the world.

It seems to me that we are again in 1905 all the way to 1914.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show ... rance.html

http://blog.taragana.com/n/brazil-to-bu ... lp-147772/

Let´s make concience.
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marcelo_malara
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by marcelo_malara »

Hi Karl. As Nelson said, Brazil needs protection for the oil offshore facilities. I believe that there is not perceived menace now, but if you wait to see the menace to rearm, surely you wil be late (ask Norway in 1940 if not). Aside this, I read in a local (Argentine forum) today, that Brazil has a firm policy of becoming the South American leader, and to occupy a post in the UN Security Council. That needs powerfull forces.

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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by ostriker »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:Sadly it seems that populist socialist Ignacio Lula da Silva, Brazil´s President, is keen to put his country and Latin America in trouble with an armamentist race. Not even during the dictatorship periods of the 60ies or 70ies a Latin American country has developed such an agressive and excesive plan to buy new and sophisticated armament.

[...]

But if both leftist goverments came with this irresponsible buys what can we expect Colombia, Paraguay or Peru would do? Already social democrat Chile has enough high tech gadgets to be a regional superpower. What can we expect Argentina will do?

[...]

It seems to me that we are again in 1905 all the way to 1914.
Totally True !
Karl Heidenreich wrote: But France, as always, is playing the irresponsible seller here
Damn! That's the point. France is responsible of the world's misfortunes, famines and wars since the apparition of the homo-sapiens. I also wonder if the frogs didn't fail to follow the humanity evolution. For sure, I propose to clean up France, (and of curse to "remove" all the frogs), and instead of wasting this place, to put some trees to make a kind of new amazonian forest.
Karl Heidenreich wrote: Maybe French military industry has suffered hence not a single western goverment has buy them their failed air superiority fighter (with which they wanted to compete against the Eurofighter and US made warbirds) and that their naval prestige has been the less one in Europe since Nelson showed everybody he controled the seas. But it is not moral to make a underdevolped country to waste in toys instead of feeding it´s people and buying medicines or protecting it´s natural resources for the well being of all the world.
Karl, it seems you are forgetting the main point: Business.
It is useless to be narrow-minded, industrial powers have sold, are selling , will sell, weapons everywhere. Infortunately, the moral hasn't her place here. And it is not the case only for your -loved- France. I remind you that other countries, or government agencies have been showed with the finger for having sold weapons, or services, to countries or not suitable organizations. It will never change.
On top of that, as you mentionned it, the export sales of the Rafale is a total failure, and I don't see Dassault refusing it.

Eric
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by Bgile »

ostriker wrote: Karl, it seems you are forgetting the main point: Business.
It is useless to be narrow-minded, industrial powers have sold, are selling , will sell, weapons everywhere. Infortunately, the moral hasn't her place here. And it is not the case only for your -loved- France. I remind you that other countries, or government agencies have been showed with the finger for having sold weapons, or services, to countries or not suitable organizations. It will never change.
On top of that, as you mentionned it, the export sales of the Rafale is a total failure, and I don't see Dassault refusing it.

Eric
Eric,

What you have just posted is exactly the French attitude to international sales. If there is a profit to be made, you sell advanced military stuff to anyone not an immediate threat to yourself. This is the sort of attitude which saw the French selling modern weapons systems to Iraq while US pilots were risking their lives every day trying to enforce the "No Fly" zones in order to try to keep him from mass killing.

Other countries do sell advanced weapons, but most tend to be a bit more discriminating.

I will say that I don't consider a sale to Brazil to be in that category, and in fact I don't know of anything particularly egregious since Iraq. Iraq did create a certain bias against the Frech, though.
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Re: Brazil buys 50 helicopters, 5 submarines from France

Post by ostriker »

Bgile wrote:
ostriker wrote: Karl, it seems you are forgetting the main point: Business.
It is useless to be narrow-minded, industrial powers have sold, are selling , will sell, weapons everywhere. Infortunately, the moral hasn't her place here. And it is not the case only for your -loved- France. I remind you that other countries, or government agencies have been showed with the finger for having sold weapons, or services, to countries or not suitable organizations. It will never change.
On top of that, as you mentionned it, the export sales of the Rafale is a total failure, and I don't see Dassault refusing it.

Eric
Eric,

What you have just posted is exactly the French attitude to international sales. If there is a profit to be made, you sell advanced military stuff to anyone not an immediate threat to yourself. This is the sort of attitude which saw the French selling modern weapons systems to Iraq while US pilots were risking their lives every day trying to enforce the "No Fly" zones in order to try to keep him from mass killing.

Other countries do sell advanced weapons, but most tend to be a bit more discriminating.

I will say that I don't consider a sale to Brazil to be in that category, and in fact I don't know of anything particularly egregious since Iraq. Iraq did create a certain bias against the Frech, though.
Hi Bgile.

To be honest with you, I won't defend the french attitude on the international weapons market, but talking about ethical problems, I don't think that France has any lessons to receive.

A point of humour: Brazilian's neighbors don't have to worry, French equipments are not reliable, Karl told it himslef!
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